


My memories of you are carved into my soul.

by Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec gets lost in his memories, Happy Ending, Mentions of Magnus, jace appears very very very briefly, mentions of Maryse, mild angst if you squint, week 4: The Boy Next Door
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 09:21:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20189938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright/pseuds/Tiger_Tiger_Burning_Bright
Summary: Alec still finds it easy to lose himself in the memories of meeting the boy next door even years later.





	My memories of you are carved into my soul.

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [sh_ficletinstruments](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sh_ficletinstruments) collection. 

> For ‘the boy next door’ prompt.
> 
> It’s sort of in line with prompt if you squint, a lot

Sometimes Alec finds his memories so overwhelming that they drive out everything else. Even here, standing in a room full of people it’s as easy as breathing to drown out all the noise surrounding him and focus on that one day, almost 8 years ago, that is forever carved into his mind; the day he first saw the boy next door.

He’d been scared then, scared of his feelings, scared of being different to everyone else, but most of all, scared of letting his family down. It had been a feeling so ingrained into his psyche that he’d barely even noticed its constant presence. 

Thinking back he remembers the moment it happened in vivid technicolour. His mother and siblings had been in the house unpacking when he’d gone outside to get another box from their battered old station wagon and he’d seen him. The boy was a similar age to him, but as he leaned against the lamppost watching the new neighbors move in he exuded an inner confidence far beyond his years. Then the boy had seen him and smiled, slow and lazy, full of warmth. When he’d said “Now, who are you?” in barely more than a whisper, Alec had known that his life had changed forever.

Now as Alec stands, hands clasped tightly behind his back, the memories come thick and fast. The way the boy would laugh, throwing his head back as the sunlight caught the highlights in his deep brown eyes, black hair flopping onto his forehead. The way the boy’s lips felt against his the first time they kissed. The warmth of his skin under Alec’s fingertips. How it had felt to be wrapped up in his arms.

Alec had wondered what the boy had seen in him. Why someone who shone like the sun would be drawn to him, but the boy had loved him and Alec had loved him back, heart and soul.

It had broken Alec when it finally came to an end. The worst part, it had been his doing. It had been him that had said long distance wouldn’t work, that they should break up now rather than later. It had been him that had stood, stony faced and emotionless as the boy had begged him to change his mind. It had been him that had cried himself to sleep and barely eaten for the next two weeks while stubbornly refusing to change his mind, convinced he done the right thing.

“You okay Buddy?” His brother’s voice cuts through the memories and Alec blinks back into the real world. “Dude, seriously, zoning out at your own wedding.” 

Jace laughs as he nudges Alec and points to the end of the aisle where two figures are approaching; his mother, arm in arm with a man, no longer ‘the boy next door’ but Magnus, the man who never gave up on him. The man who would soon be his husband.

Alec smiles, heart full of pure joy.


End file.
